Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 89:1 - 89:1
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The poet, who, as one soon observes, is a חכם (for the very beginning of the Psalm is remarkable and ingenious), begins with the confession of the inviolability of the mercies promised to the house of David, i.e., of the הַסְדֵי דָוִד הַנֶּֽאֱמָנִים, Isa 55:3.
(Note: The Vulgate renders: Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo. The second Sunday after Easter takes its name from this rendering.)
God's faithful love towards the house of David, a love faithful to His promises, will he sing without ceasing, and make it known with his mouth, i.e., audibly and publicly (cf. Job 19:16), to the distant posterity. Instead of חַסְדֵי, we find here, and also in Lam 3:22, חַסְדֵי with a not merely slightly closed syllable. The Lamed of לְדֹר וָדֹר is, according to Psa 103:7; Psa 145:12, the datival Lamed. With כִּי־אָמַרְתִּי (lxx, Jerome, contrary to Psa 89:3, ὅτι εἶπας) the poet bases his resolve upon his conviction. נִבְנֶה means not so much to be upheld in building, as to be in the course of continuous building (e.g., Job 22:23; Mal 3:15, of an increasingly prosperous condition). Loving-kindness is for ever (accusative of duration) in the course of continuous building, viz., upon the unshakeable foundation of the promise of grace, inasmuch as it is fulfilled in accordance therewith. It is a building with a most solid foundation, which will not only not fall into ruins, but, adding one stone of fulfilment upon another, will rise ever higher and higher. שָׁמַיִם then stands first as casus absol., and בָּהֶם is, as in Psa 19:5, a pronoun having a backward reference to it. In the heavens, which are exalted above the rise and fall of things here below, God establishes His faithfulness, so that it stands fast as the sun above the earth, although the condition of things here below seems sometimes to contradict it (cf. Psa 119:89). Now follow in Psa 89:4-5 the direct words of God, the sum of the promises given to David and to his seed in 2 Sam. 7, at which the poet arrives more naturally in Psa 89:20. Here they are strikingly devoid of connection. It is the special substance of the promises that is associated in thought with the “loving-kindness” and “truth” of Psa 89:3, which is expanded as it were appositionally therein. Hence also אָכִין and תָּכִין, וּבָנִיתִי and יִבָּנֶה correspond to one another. David's seed, by virtue of divine faithfulness, has an eternally sure existence; Jahve builds up David's throne “into generation and generation,” inasmuch as He causes it to rise ever fresh and vigorous, never as that which is growing old and feeble.